It will be gathered from the above that a battery requires a very large number of instruments and apparatus of all descriptions, and the strain upon the manufacturers to supply them fast enough to equip new formations was at one time very great. In our own case, some of these stores only reached us on the quay of the port of embarkation an hour before the transport sailed. We had been toiling since early morning on one of the hottest days of the year, with no possible opportunity for refreshment. A car dashed up and unloaded a box of instruments, which we proceeded to unpack for the purpose of checking. The first thing to be produced was a large aneroid barometer, of which the hand pointed significantly to the words "Very dry." A sagacious instrument was that.
XI
BEHIND THE LINE
"Upon the Western Front there is nothing to report." So runs the official news from day to day; it is a period of comparative quiet in which neither army finds it expedient to make a move, but each lies watching and waiting for the next sign of activity on the part of the other. It is not inactivity, the perpetual crack of rifles and the occasional bursts of artillery fire that rise suddenly by day and night are the surest guarantees of that, but merely the temporary abandonment of offensive tactics on either side. Modern trench warfare has strengthened the defence at the expense of the offence to so great an extent that such periods must be the natural state of things. There is no such thing as a flank attack, for the flanks of the opposing forces rest upon positions that cannot be turned, in one case the sea, in the other a neutral country. Many years ago, long before such an extended double defensive was contemplated, an extremely clever parody upon the art of war as laid down in the text-books was produced, in which the author sets forth three possible means of collision, first when two armies meet, both of which are in motion, second when two armies meet, one of which is in motion and the other is stationary, and third when two armies meet both of which are stationary. The latter situation, ridiculous as it appears and as the author intended it to appear, is the best definition of the state of things which actually occurs daily along all the gigantic fronts. "Nothing doing," says the gunner; "we fired a few rounds yesterday at a place where somebody said the Bosches had a battery, but that's all." "Haven't seen a bullet or a shell for days," says the infantryman. "Believe there's nobody but the caretaker and his wife opposite." In the battery we have meals at regular hours, we discuss the war instead of our own infinitesimal contribution to it, the more enterprising amongst us hint at the glorious possibilities of having a hot bath. Life, in short, begins to slip into a groove of routine.
Yet we are in a state of constant readiness, and the appearance of inactivity is wholly misleading. Eyes are perpetually on the watch in the observation station, a telephonist sits with the head receiver of the instrument fixed on his head, the detachments on duty sit in the gun-pits or in the dug-outs close at hand, busy upon some work, improving the head cover, polishing the fittings of the gun, or else writing letters to their friends that tell strange tales of battle, murder and sudden death. In the control room by the telephone dug-out sits an officer, studying the map, recording the results of a previous day's fire, or entering particulars of targets and ranges in his notebook. Perhaps the wind is blowing towards the firing line, carrying away from the battery all sounds of war, so that nothing can be heard but the strains of an amateur band (of mouth-organs, concertinas and a triangle) from one of the gun-pits, and the monotonous call of the crier in that strange game of "House" that pervades the British Army—"nineteen, forty-one, number three, sixty-four," and a sudden excited voice "'ouse!"
But suddenly the buzzer in the telephone room wakes into life. Dash dot dot dash, dash dot dot, dash dash dot—X D G, it calls imperiously. That is our call, and the telephonist throws away the novel he was reading and seizes pencil and paper. "320th Siege! Yes, go on, yes—fire six rounds at once on Puits thirty-seven. R.D." The message reaches the officer in the control room, who dashes out of the door with a megaphone through which he roars one word, "Action!" Instantly the detachments vanish into the pits, from which a sound of urgent preparation rises, the band stops abruptly upon an excruciating chord, the players of "House" scatter to their respective stations. Then comes the regular sequence of orders, and in something less than a minute from the receipt of the message the first gun roars into pulsing life again.
Sudden calls such as these are only incidents that disturb the quiet of the daily life of the battery, which pursues the even tenor of its way as soon as the number of rounds ordered has been fired. And even when the word "Action!" sounds, it only affects the officers and men actually on duty. The remainder are free to follow their own vocations until it is their turn to be ready to answer the summons. There is usually plenty of work for officers off duty to do, in the battery itself, but still several opportunities occur for exploration of the neighbouring country, of which the most interesting form is reconnaissance of the ground from the front line trenches in one's own neighbourhood. I have had many most interesting excursions to places from whence a different view of the country could be obtained from that presented from our own observation stations, and a different angle of view often clears up many doubtful points. It is a most difficult matter to recognize every feature on the ground by the aid of a map from one point alone, but if angles can be taken to a doubtful object from two or more points, its position can be fixed and identified upon the map with comparative ease. And the interest of an expedition taken with this primary object in view lies in the unexpected discoveries that one often makes, of objects and incidents that would otherwise be unknown to one. In the southern sector the village of Loos was a favourite object for a walk. The enemy kept the place continuously under fire after his repulse from it, to such an extent that the establishment there of a permanent observation station was sternly discouraged by the higher artillery command. It is useless to risk the lives of telephonists and linesmen in a place that is under fire night and day, and where, even if one's observation station is spared, one's lines are certain to be repeatedly cut, unless the objects to be gained by so doing are of counterbalancing importance. We were lucky enough to possess other and safer observation posts, so that we only used the village in cases of necessity. And we were by no means sorry, for, to use the deathless expression of Monsieur le Commandant, the place was "not sanitary," not only from the effects of the enemy's fire, but from the fact that for many weeks after the operations of September 25 the streets were still encumbered with dead horses and other odoriferous objects. Even as late as the third week in October the dead lay thickly strewn outside the cover afforded by the houses, and on a still day the stench in the particular building that we used as a watch-tower was utterly insupportable unless one smoked without intermission. It used to be said that it was possible to find one's way about the place in the dark purely by the use of one's nose alone.
During another of these journeys of exploration, one of our officers was in the front line trenches, which had recently been slightly pushed forward, engaged in marking them in on his map. The trenches were newly dug and not yet finished, and the enemy, knowing this, kept up a slow but fairly steady rain of shrapnel upon them. As my friend was making his way along the trench, he saw a brigadier and his entourage advancing in the opposite direction towards him. Having an instinctive mistrust of "brass-hats" and of the inane questions that they are so fond of asking, he stopped where he was, hoping that they would pass by without noticing him. But the fates were against him. When not more than twenty yards separated him from the splendid company, a shell burst fairly in the trench not a couple of yards from the brigadier himself, damaging neither him nor his staff, but unfortunately killing one of the defenders. Almost at the same moment one of the lynx-eyed suite discovered my friend's presence and also the fact that he was an artillery officer. "Just the man we want! Order your battery to open fire at once on the gun that fired that shot." To the average staff officer politeness is a sign of weakness, nothing but a peremptory order is possible from one of such high mental attainments. My friend explained with some asperity that he was not in communication with his battery, being merely on a reconnaissance for the purpose of discovering information that the Staff had neglected to render, information that was of vital importance, namely the position of our own trenches. But that if he would be good enough to inform him of the exact position of the offending battery, he would walk back and open fire upon it. Then all the members of the entourage—the brigadier himself maintained an amused silence throughout—pointed in different directions, each swearing that they had seen the flash of the gun in the place he indicated, some of them displaying a happy ignorance by selecting places well within our own lines. My friend was to take a compass bearing of the direction, he was to stand where the shell fell and wait for the next flash (not a bad idea that), they themselves would get into touch with the artillery group through their own telephone system. Finally they drifted on, still, like the heathen, furiously raging together. My friend forgot all about them in the course of investigating more important matters, until he arrived that evening at the office of his group commander to report upon his observations. He was greeted with the words, "Hullo, what have you been up to?" "Nothing particularly heinous, I hope, sir." "What did you tell that parcel of lunatics to ring me up and request me to open fire on nothing for?" "I didn't, sir," and then the whole story came out, much to the amusement of the group commander. Nor did this close the incident by any means. Somebody having decided that the battery that had the presumption to fire upon a brigadier and his staff was probably situated in a certain wood, on the morrow of the affair at a given hour every battery within range was ordered to fire a certain number of rounds into the said wood. The result must have saved the enemy the trouble of cutting firewood for the rest of the winter.